Incorrect rendering of Malayalam Unicode text in VS Code Integrated Terminal

[ByteJoseph]

Does this issue occur when all extensions are disabled?: Yes

• VS Code Version: 1.100.1
• x64
• OS Version: Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.19045.5796]

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Create a Python file (app.py) with the following content:

   print("Hello")
   print("你好，世界")
   print("നമസ്കാരം ഇത് മലയാളം അക്ഷരം ആണ്")

2. Run the script inside the VS Code integrated terminal:

   python app.py

3.Observe that:
English (Hello) and Chinese (你好，世界) render correctly.
Malayalam (നമസ്കാരം ...) renders incorrectly as garbled characters.

[mihirgokani007]

+1
The issue is the same for me for Devanagari text on MacOS.

I've installed the FiraCode Nerd Font which supports all the Devanagari gylphs and configured correctly for:

• vscode editor (by setting "editor.fontFamily": "FiraCode Nerd Font")
• vscode terminal (by explicitly setting "terminal.integrated.fontFamily": "FiraCode Nerd Font" although ideally it should inherit from editor.fontFamily)
• and external Terminal.app.

I also double-checked if the new fonts are getting used at all 3 places and they are.

The issue is with the glyphs with the integrated vscode terminal. Other 2 places - vscode editor and external terminal - renders it correctly.

e.g. भारत gets rendered as:

My installation:
I'm on MacOS 12.7.6.

Version: 1.100.1 (Universal)
Commit: 91fa95bccb027ece6a968589bb1d662fa9c8e170
Date: 2025-05-09T15:43:50.040Z
Electron: 34.5.1
ElectronBuildId: 11369351
Chromium: 132.0.6834.210
Node.js: 20.19.0
V8: 13.2.152.41-electron.0
OS: Darwin x64 21.6.0

[meganrogge]

This appears to be caused by an upstream issue in xterm.js (xtermjs/xterm.js#4867), which affects how certain Unicode characters are rendered and aligned in the terminal.